As used herein, the term “placard” refers to a card or plaque made of paper, plastic or metal, on which an advertising message, trademark or other information is printed or displayed. A “grain bin” is considered any type of bulk, flowable material container having a base and sides on which a placard can be mounted or attached. One example of a grain bin is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,022 entitled, “Dispensing Box for Flowable Material” issued Jan. 4, 2000 to Deaton and which is assigned to the assignee of this application. The contents of the '022 Deaton patent are incorporated herein in its entirety.
As shown in FIG. 1, grain bins including the one shown in the '022 patent are often provided with a placard 5 on one of the outside surfaces 7 of the grain bin. The placard displays information about the product contained therein or the source or origin of the product. Those placards 5, usually measure about sixteen inches tall by about twenty-four inches wide. They are typically attached to the grain bin side 7 using screws 10.
Removing and replacing a sign attached with screws is time consuming. Moreover, driving screws into a plastic repeatedly will eventually strip material into which the metal threads engage, eventually making it impossible to attach a placard to the grain bin. An apparatus for quickly and reliably attaching a placard to a grain bin would be an improvement over the prior art.